News archive

A report broadcast on the American TV network CBS compelled Canadian author Deborah Schnitzer to visit the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen. She wanted to learn how the archive works firsthand and see documents on her husband´s family. “I´m interested in how the archive has changed since it opened its...

Moscow researcher Alexej Konopatchenkov spent four days at the International Tracing Service archives examining material on Russian prisoners of the concentration camp Mauthausen. “I was able to get an idea of the scope of the documents,” said the historian.&nbsp; “There is still only limited interest in the topic in...

Thomas Irmer conducted research this week for the second time at the International Tracing Service (ITS) on behalf of the memorial foundation of Saxony-Anhalt. He reviewed the prisoner numbers of nearly 1000 victims of the Gardelegen massacre which took place at the end of the Second World War. “I´m turning numbers...

Dr. Gabriele Hammermann, Director of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, spent a week with two colleagues at the International Tracing Service (ITS) getting an overview of the collection of documents housed in Bad Arolsen.&nbsp;They focused mainly on the fates of former prisoners and the SS´s written...

Dr. Brigitte Halbmayr and Dr. Helga Amesberger of the Institute for Conflict Research (IKF) in Vienna visited the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen in early October to do research for their study of former female prisoners at Mauthausen and its satellite concentration camp. They also wanted to...

The new US Consul General in Frankfurt am Main, Edward M. Alford, sees the future of the International Tracing Service (ITS) as a research center. “When the last victim passes on, the documents must bear witness to the enormity of the Nazi atrocities,” said the US representative during a visit to the archive, which...

It was not the search for a relative but for three notebooks from a great aunt´s estate which led Heinz Bachmann from Switzerland to the ITS (International Tracing Service) in Bad Arolsen. Buchenwald concentration camp survivor Marton Stark had recorded his experiences in the notebooks at the end of 1945. “I was deeply...

The well-known journalist and publicist Volker Koop sifted through the archives of the International Tracing Service (ITS) late in September gathering material for his new book project on the so-called “Sonder- und Ehrenhäftlinge” (special inmates and prisoners of honour) of the concentration camps. The high-ranking...

Research for his doctoral thesis brought Andreas Ehresmann, Director of the Sandbostel memorial site, to the International Tracing Service (ITS) in mid-September. The subject of his thesis is the reconstruction of the architectural history of Neuengamme concentration camp. “This is the first&nbsp;thesis of its kind”,...

It has been eleven years now that the Dutch journalist Remco Reiding for the first time set his foot on the Russian cemetery near former concentration camp Amersfoort, not knowing that he would be under the sway of this place ever since. Reiding retraces the life story of the people buried there undertaking a parallel...